In Latin America, probably owing to the relatively low level
of scientific and technological development in most of the
continent, and the imperative nature of other problems, public
debates, struggles, and mobilizations in relation to scientific
and technological development and human rights have been limited.
Problems like computer technology and privacy, the risks and
ethical implications of research in biotechnology, the ethical
dilemmas implied in advanced medical treatments - matters that
have become critical questions in industrialized countries - have
yet to become significant political issues. Even in relation to
important environmental threats - as a result of industrial
development or the massive misuse of natural resources - Latin
American reaction both at the government level and in a wide
political spectrum has been, at best, ambiguous.

Every worldwide plan for conservation of natural resources and
effective protection of the ecosystems of the biosphere brings
about mistrust in Third World intellectual conscience that
perceives several threats for countries in the periphery.
Metropolitan centers, using ecological and protectionist banners
as an excuse, could limit Third World countries' autonomy
in relation to use of their natural resources, thus reserving
natural resources for industrialized countries' needs. The Third
World would have to carry out a very restrictive demographic
policy, and very modest levels of technological and economic
development. A development policy guided by these views of
ecology would ratify the present division of the world between
industrialized and underdeveloped countries, and increase the
distance between rich and poor nations.19

However, during the past decade, political debates and social
conflicts in relation to the implications of technical decisions
(nuclear energy; construction of great dams; highways in the
Amazon; exploitation of mineral resources; industrial plants
without adequate anti-pollution protection, etc.) have been
occupying an increasingly significant political space.

Nuclear Energy

Nuclear policy, perhaps the most important single political
issue in scientific and technological debates in the
industrialized world, has had some political relevance only in
some larger countries of Latin America. The Tlatelolco Treaty,
agreed to by 21 countries in 1967, was the first multinational
treaty renouncing the use of nuclear energy for warfare. It
prohibits the development, reception, and acquisition of nuclear
arms and nuclear testing in the Latin American continent, not
only by the member states but also by extra-continental nuclear
powers.20 This treaty has not been signed by all Latin
American countries, and according to conditions laid down by some
countries, the nuclear ban will be obligatory for them only when
all the governments in the continent have ratified it. Thus, for
different reasons, the treaty is not in force in Brazil, Argen
tine, Chile, Guyana, and Cuba. The treaty, moreover, lacks
penalties for violations.

Nuclear arms have not been developed in Latin America in spite
of the fact that at least some countries seem to have the
required know-how.21 The military establishments in
Argentina and Brazil have used each other's nuclear programmes as
the threat that justifies the development of nuclear weapons.22
Research in that field seems to have been quite advanced in both
cases. However, the end of the military regimes, public
opposition to the nuclear arms programmes and a marked
improvement in the relations between these countries seem to have
halted both programmes. An expression of this new warmth in
diplomatic relations is the signing in 1985 of the Protocol of
Nuclear Security and Cooperation between Brazil and
Argentina.23

Four countries in the continent (Brazil, Argentina, Mexico,
and Cuba) have developed ambitious nuclear energy plans. Mexico
planned for 20 nuclear plants. Brazil signed a contract for the
construction of eight nuclear plants with Kraftwerk Union of
Germany.24 However, these programmes met with severe
political opposition as well as financial and technical
difficulties. In Brazil, the military's nuclear programme met
with opposition from leading industrialists and critics in and
out of government for both technical and financial reasons.25
The military objected to public debates on nuclear policy, but
opposition none the less continued. Resistance to the military's
nuclear plans was strengthened by the opposition victory in the
elections in São Paulo in November 1982 where some plants were
to be located. Finally, in 1983, the Figueredo government
announced the indefinite postponement of the construction of two
reactors that were to be built on the São Paulo coastline. The
completion of two reactors under construction was deferred.26
After the Chernobyl disaster public opposition to Brazil's
nuclear programme increased. Important mass demonstrations
against nuclear energy took place.27 The scientific
community argued that the nuclear programme was unnecessary
unless the objective was the making of nuclear weapons. The only
operating plant in the country (Angra I) was closed by a judge in
mid-1986 until evacuation measures in the event of an accident
had been widely discussed by the local community. Scientists
demanded public debate of Brazil's nuclear policy and insisted
that the nuclear industry should not be self-regulatory.28
Because of public opposition, financial difficulties, foreign
debt, and the end of the military regime, of the eight new
nuclear reactors that were planned, six were cancelled and two
were delayed.29

More as a result of financial difficulties than political
opposition and the mass demonstrations against nuclear plants
that took place in 1986, Mexico's planned 20 nuclear plants have
been drastically reduced to two.30 Likewise, in
Argentina, as a consequence of the new civilian government taking
office and the severe economic crisis, four programmed nuclear
plants were cancelled and one under construction runs the risk of
being discontinued.31 Thus, after the spending of
billions of dollars on these projects - products of the
megalomania of military and technocratic elites - Latin American
nuclear programmes have come practically to a standstill. Only in
Cuba, where the closed nature of its political system limits
public debate, does nuclear plant construction seem to continue
unhindered.

Another Development

The questioning of scientific and technological decisions in
Latin America is often explicitly part of a global critique of
the present hegemonic style or model of economic and
technological development from the perspective of an alternative
model, the so-called "another development" or
"ecodevelopment." Within the context of debates on
alternative styles of development, there are well-developed
analyses of the relations between basic human rights (and basic
human needs), and scientific-technological development. The
current model of scientific and technological development is
questioned as being oriented more towards profit and the
imitation of the consumption patterns of industrialized countries
by a small privileged minority than towards the satisfaction of
the basic needs of the majority of the population.32
Within this overall perspective, there is a wide diversity of
approaches in contemporary debates, with varying degrees of
criticism of Western scientific and technological development and
its impact on Latin American society. Representative of current
critical Latin American approaches in relation to technological
development is the Technological Prospective for Latin America
Project.33 The project starts with the basic
assumption that any discussion on the scientific and
technological requirements of Latin American societies demands,
in the first place, an explicit definition of the characteristics
of the desirable society. This in turn is defined as an
egalitarian, participatory, and autonomous society that is
intrinsically compatible with its physical environment. Only on
the basis of such a socio-economic strategy, according to this
perspective, can the social requirements of science and
technology and of R&D be defined. This is obviously a
political conception of scientific and technological development
guise distant from linear-naturalistic or market conceptions of
the technological process.34

Over the past few years the critique of the impact of modern
technology has appeared beyond the limits of social science and
has led to the emergence of a variety of grass-roots
organizations. A radical critique of the hegemonic model of
scientific and technological development is found in the multiple
organizations and groups involved in research, experimentation
and use of alternative or appropriate technologies. These groups
are concerned not only with small-scale, decentralized, and
democratically controlled technology, but also with an
alternative to the civilizing model implied by modern large-scale
technology. Technology is not assumed to be an independent or
neutral variable in the construction of a desirable social order
but as a tool that must be shaped according to demands that
should be democratically defined according to people's needs.

Frequently, the issue of democratic control of scientific and
technological decisions is not initially an explicit demand, but
a by-product of debates and conflicts in relation to other
issues. The questioning of specific technological decisions often
leads to misgivings in relation to the legitimacy of the
decision-making process in science and technology, and then to
demands for other decision-making methods with increased public
participation.

The Arms Industry and Military Expenditure

Military autonomy, long periods of military government, and
the permanent threat of military coupe, in all but the most
stable democratic societies on the continent, have made it almost
impossible to carry out serious democratic debates in relation to
arms expenditure or the arms industry in Latin America. Under
military or civil governments, these topics are considered as
strategic matters of state that should be protected from public
interference. There are three main ways in which expenditure on
military technology is directly related to human rights issues.
The first, and most obvious, is the fact that weapons in the
hands of the armed forces are almost exclusively used against
their country's own population. Even if high-tech military
equipment were not a necessary prerequisite for the thousands of desaparecidos
in Argentina, there is no doubt that the hardware in the
hands of the military proved to be much more effective against
the Argentinian civilian population than against the British in
the Falklands. In second place is the economic significance of
arms imports in a continent facing a deep economic crisis and the
impossibility of servicing its foreign debt without imposing
insupportable sacrifices on most of the population by recessive
economic policies.35 In third place - and more
directly related to the issue of technological alternatives or
the alternative use of resources for technological development -
is the significance of domestic arms production. Know-how and
financial resources directed toward research and development in
the arms industry are assets distracted from other potential
uses. While this is not a significant issue in the smaller
countries (with no arms industry), it is a particularly salient
problem in Brazil, which over the last few years has developed a
full-fledged defence industry and has become one the most
important weapons exporters in the world.36 The
development of this arms industry clearly highlights the
priorities of the Brazilian military. While most of the
inhabitants of Brazil live below the so-called poverty line, the
country has a US$10 to US$12 billion-dollar weapons industry,37
and has even produced such high-tech items as a rival to the
Exocet missile, a computer-guided anti-ship missile that is
supposed to be almost 100 per cent accurate.38

It is hardly possible to separate the technological issues
(R&D expenditure, national priorities in scientific and
technological development, possible alternative uses of the
billions of dollars spent on imports of military hardware in a
situation of deep economic crisis, the relation between arms
imports and foreign debt, etc.) from the more explicit and direct
political issues relating not only to military expenditure, but
to the role of the military in society, the precarious nature of
democracy in Latin America, and the massive and generalized
violation of human rights by the military in most of the
continent over the past decades. The present process of
democratization of the continent has only been possible as a
compromise in which the military establishment is not defeated
but agrees to return power to an elected civilian government in
return for guarantees that it will not be held responsible for
the violation of human rights during the military regimes. In
addition, it preserves a major voice in such issues as military
expenditure. The end of military regimes has not involved a major
alteration in the relative influence of the armed forces. In some
countries this amounts to a virtual power of veto in relation to
main societal decisions.39

Environment and Contamination

In recent years, environmental concerns have become a salient
political problem in most of the continent. Environment-related
issues are clearly the most significant science and technology
questions that have become prominent political problems in Latin
America. Over the last few decades the process of annihilation of
the environment has advanced on an ever-accelerating scale,
devastating rivers, forests, and topsoil and contaminating air
and water. These are no longer problems that people read about in
the newspapers or see on television. Mexico City, for example, is
not only the biggest metropolis in the world, but easily the most
polluted. The everyday living and health conditions of its 18
million inhabitants are dangerously affected.40 The
life expectancy of babies born in this mega-metropolis is
significantly reduced. The situation in São Paulo and Santiago
is almost as bad. In these conditions, the environment is no
longer the exclusive concern of an educated middle-class
minority. The destructive impact of this model of development is
so overwhelming that in spite of the pressing nature of other
problems faced by the population, such as unemployment, or lack
of housing and food, the right to a healthy environment has
become a vital political priority for all sectors of society.41

The Development of the Brazilian Amazon Basin

The Amazon development plans are the result of a complex
combination of military megalomania (an ambition to turn Brazil
into a first-rate world power, as well as a certain degree of
paranoia in relation to potential threats from neighbouring
countries if all Brazil is not populated and developed), demands
from multinational and national capital interested in exploiting
the vast resources of the area, cattle ranchers eager for immense
tracts of land, the urgent need to generate the enormous amounts
of exportable goods required to repay the biggest foreign debt of
any third-world country, and the pressing social problems
inherited from the Brazilian economic miracle of the last
decades. Brazil has one of the most unequal income distributions
in the world, land holding is highly concentrated, there are
millions of landless peasants. and high levels of unemployment
prevail. For the Brazilian military and technocrats that have
controlled the country over the last 25 years, the Amazon - the
last great frontier- has seemed to offer solutions to these
problems and ambitions.

The development of the Amazon basin exemplifies the potential
negative impact of technological development on human rights.
From this viewpoint, it can almost be considered as a typical
case of what should not be done. The destructive potential of
modern scientific and technological development is carried to its
limit, while the use of all the potential of modern science and
technology in respect of forecasting, prevention, and technology
assessment is limited in so far as the decision-making process is
concerned. In relation to basic issues such as the importance of
the Amazonian rain forest for world oxygen production, or the
impact of Amazonian fires on the greenhouse effect or the
destruction of the ozone layer, there is still much disagreement
among experts. However, in other cases, the problems have little
to do with know-how or the capacity to predict or prevent harmful
results. The development process in the Amazon basin could also
be seen as an example of the potential of modern science and
technology to forecast the negative consequences of certain
technological decisions before their effect becomes irreversible,
or their capacity to give early warning on significant adverse
effects through environment diagnosis based on the most advanced
technologies such as satellite surveillance. But facts by
themselves, even universally recognized facts, do not necessarily
lead to "correct" decisions. This depends on the
political system and the degree to which the conflicting views
and interests of all the relevant or affected groups or
populations are considered. These are political problems, not
problems of a strictly scientific or technological nature.
Moreover, the closed, shielded organization of modern scientific
and technological institutions, the aura of great proficiency and
expertise that surrounds the whole scientific-technological
enterprise of modern society and its accompanying technocratic
ideology are vital limiting factors in any attempt to democratize
the decision-making process in areas that have to do with science
or technology.42

An overall idea of the global magnitude of these
megadevelopment plans is given by some facts about the Gran
Carajás project, just one of several development programmes
proposed for the Brazilian Amazon basin. This project consists of
highways, railroads, hydroelectric dams, large-scale cattle
ranching, forestry, iron-ore and bauxite mining, and charcoal
production, as well as several large pig-iron mills and
aluminum-smelting plants, with an total investment of US$62
billion. It includes an area as large as France and England
combined,43 covering 885,265 square kilometres, or
10.6 per cent of the total surface of the country.44
As has been the case with all other large-scale development
programmes in Brazil over the past decades, the decision-making
process is highly centralized in an Interministerial Council with
no participation by the legislative or judicial branches of
government or by organized labour.45 The environmental
repercussions of these large-scale plans (which have been carried
out with little assessment of their impact on the very fragile
ecology system of the Amazonian tropical rain forest) have been
well known for some time.46 Equally well known and
documented has been the dramatic impact of these projects on the
aboriginal populations that live in these areas.47
However, owing to the closed, repressive nature of the military
regime, internal opposition to these programmes had very limited
effect for some time.

The development of the Amazon basin became an important
political issue not just in Brazil, but internationally, when
domestic groups (ecologists, anthropologists, and others) were
able to link their struggle with concerned international
organizations. Some of these, like Survival International,
Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund and the
Environmental Defence Fund, have acted as international
resonance-chambers for local struggles, thus increasing their
impact in spite of very inauspicious internal political
conditions.48 The efficacy of these international
organizations is enhanced by the growing conviction by
environmentalists worldwide that large-scale destruction of
ecological systems like the Amazon basin and tropical rain forest
is not just the concern of Brazilians, since it imperils the very
conditions that make life possible on the planet Earth. Equally
important is the leverage gained by these groups from the fact
that many of these projects are at least partially financed by
first-world or first-world-controlled institutions, such as the
European Community or the World Bank, over which they can exert
direct political pressure.

This combination of national and international organizations
in demanding a radical reconsideration of most of the development
plans in the Amazon basin has had some impact. The Brazil
Environmental Secretariat (SEMA) was created in 1973 and a
national environment policy had been established by law by 198149.
Major development projects now include - at least on paper - some
environmental precautions and some form of demarcation for
Amerindian land.50 International financial
institutions - yielding to pressure by ecological organizations -
have begun to demand some environmental safeguards as a
prerequisite for continued financing. These and other forms of
international attempts to have a say in the country's development
plans have been interpreted by successive military and civilian
governments as imperialistic intervention in the internal,
sovereign affairs of Brazil. Nationalist and anti-imperialist
banners now appear in the hands of right-wingers, landowners, and
the military.51

"The international community cannot try to strangle the
development of Brazil in the name of false ecological
theories," foreign ministry secretary-general Paulo Tarso
Flecha de Lima has stated. Foreign criticism of the government's
alleged indifference to the destruction of the Amazon is
"arrogant, presumptuous and aggressive."

The tough-talking Flecha de Lima was in the Hague in March
1990 to attend a 24-nation conference on the protection of the
environment. In Brazil, the meeting added fuel to what some
observers described as a dangerous xenophobia backlash.

Talk of "internationalization" of the Amazon has
spurred the Brazilian military into adopting a high-profile
position on the issue. A stream of statements made by the
minister of the army, Leonidas Pires Goncalves, clearly shows the
irritation of the military to ward both foreign and domestic
environmentalist movements. He has explicitly ruled out their
participation in any decision-making in the region.52

In the words of Jose Sarney, when he was President of Brazil:
"We cannot allow the Amazon to become a green Persian Gulf.
. . The ecology movement is a Trojan Horse destined to seduce
youths and conceal bigger interests." 53

To counter international condemnation over the destruction of
the rain forest, Sarney called a meeting of the presidents of the
Amazon Cooperation Pact, signed by eight countries in 1978. The
meeting rejected "attempts to impose conditions on the
granting of resources," emphasizing that the eight countries
had a sovereign right to the use of their resources.54

These conflicts illustrate the complexities of human rights in
relation to scientific and technological development. Every
conception of human rights implies a definition of certain
subjects to whom the rights apply. By making reference to
different subjects or groups to whom human rights may apply, the
participants in the Amazon conflicts may all invoke the language
of human rights. Whose human rights are more important? The
rights of the Amerindians to survival, to their cultural identity
and traditional lifestyles? The sovereign right of the Brazilian
government to carry out large-scale development plans without any
foreign interference? Or the rights of humankind as a whole, when
the basic right to life by present and future generations might
be imperilled by the sovereign decisions of an independent
country?

Matters are complicated by the fact that important development
decisions often mean that new groups of populations are involved.
Before massive colonization starts, there are conflicts between
aboriginal rights on the one hand, and government development
plans, the interests of multinationals, large-scale cattle
ranchers, etc., on the other. However, once hundreds of thousands
of poor Brazilians from other parts of the country arrive - as
small-scale gold prospectors (garimpeiros), or looking for
land or employment- a new situation is created and the human
rights issues involved are no longer so clear-cut.55

Scientific-Technological Development and Democratic
Theory

In spite of all the areas in which scientific and
technological decisions have become relevant political issues in
Latin America over the past few years, these are not the most
salient political problems on the continent. The economic crisis,
the foreign debt, the critical poverty of an increasing
proportion of the population, the systematic violations of human
rights by the military regimes that have ruled most of the
continent in the last two decades, etc., by far overshadow the
political centrality of scientific and technological issues, even
if usually these are intrinsically related. In spite of the
increasing critical awareness by political groups, grass-roots
organizations, and the intellectual community of the potential
negative impact of uncontrolled scientific and technological
development, the dominant ideology is still that of blind faith
in science and technology as the solution to the continent's
problems. This faith has been enhanced recent dominance of
neo-liberalism in the economic and political establishment of
almost every country in the continent.

Even democratic theory, the main concern of contemporary Latin
American social sciences, fails to deal adequately with the main
political issues involved in the dominant decision-making process
in science and technology. Given the cardinal and growing impact
of scientific and technological decisions in shaping multiple
spheres of contemporary life, and their powerful positive and
negative impacts in terms of human rights, a genuine democratic
control of the main scientific and technological decisions can be
considered as a condition without which it is hardly possible to
speak of a democratic society. Fundamental liberties and basic
human rights are denied, and cultural freedom and self-reliance
made impossible, if basic scientific and technological decisions
are imposed in an authoritarian manner with little or no
participation by those who are affected by these decisions.
Contemporary democratic theory - with its excessive emphasis on
political and state aspects of social life - has as one of its
basic challenges the inclusion of scientific and technological
decisions as vital democratic issues, in opposition to
technocratic and universalistic tendencies that today represent
important obstacles in the struggle toward more authentically
democratic societies.